60% of institutions in Saudi Arabia hit by malware-based attacks

“The study found that 41 percent of the respondents questioned believe that their institutions need better tools to detect “persistent threats” and deal with targeted attacks.” reported the Arabnews.com.

Saudi Arabian Government aims to establish an e-security hub in the Kingdom to improve the resilience of government entities an critical infrastructure against cyber attacks.

“Our objectives as an e-security hub in the Kingdom focus on improving the readiness of e-security and the capabilities of the government sector, including the vital national infrastructure, and developing national capabilities in terms of e-security,” said Dr. Abbad Al-Abbad, the NCSC’s executive director of strategic development and communication.
“The workshop was held in cooperation with Kaspersky Lab and enabled IT professionals and public- and private-sector organizations to learn about the most important solutions and results in this field.”

Maxim Frolov, Kaspersky Lab’s regional managing director, applauded the efforts of the Saudi Arabia in improving its cyber capabilities.

“We believe in Kaspersky Lab that many countries can learn from Saudi Arabia in this area,” he said.

Participants at the workshop illustrated the initiatives launched by public-sector organizations in digital transformation efforts.

The digital transformation would play a key role in achieving the goals of Vision 2030, cyber security is an essential requirement for the growth of the Kingdom.

FILE- In this Monday, Oct. 6, 2003 file photo, Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh with the ‘Kingdom Tower’ photographed through a window of the ‘Al-Faislia Tower’ in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh. Saudi Arabia’s stock exchange has opened up to direct foreign investment for the first time. The decision to open up the Tadawul stock exchange on Monday comes at a crucial time for Saudi Arabia, whose revenue has taken a hit from the plunge in oil prices over the past year. The kingdom is the world’s largest exporter of crude. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

Earlier this year Saudi Arabia warned organizations in the country of a resurrection of the dreaded Shamoon 2 malware that hit the Saudi Arabian labor ministry, the Sadara Chemical Co and other private companies in the country.

In March, security experts at MalwareBytes have spotted a spear phishing campaign that targeted Saudi Arabia governmental organizations.

According to the experts, the campaign targeted about a dozen Saudi agencies. Attackers used weaponized Word document and tricked victims into opening them and enabling macros.

In August, researchers at Kaspersky Lab discovered a new wave of attack leveraging the Mamba ransomware that hit organizations in Brazil and Saudi Arabia.